Why Tech Communities are Falling Through

Posted on January 19, 2008 by Kristan Kenney

Note: This is a personal opinion piece. Feel free to take this with several grains of salt. Hell, take the whole cube while you’re at it.

I’ve been doing some thinking, and after having numerous conversations with some individuals who will remain un-named, I’ve come to the conclusion that some people are too wrapped-up around the computer system that they use, to the point where they could very well border-line on “fanboy,” and I feel that this is affecting the credibility of the tech community as a whole.

Example:

“John,” a PHP developer, switches his personal home computer from Windows to Linux, and he enjoys using Linux because of the advanced functionality that it provides to him.

Now, “Jim,” a long-time Windows user and Microsoft supporter, who has conversed with John for several years, criticizes John for his decision, stating that he is brainless and dim-witted because Linux is open-source, and that Windows is the only platform that matters.

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Complete .NET Portability with Wine & Mono?

Posted on September 19, 2007 by NeoSmart Technologies

Mono is the open-source version of Microsoft’s .NET Framework. It implements most of the backend framework features, but unfortunately, falls flat on its pretty little face when attempting to display the user interface – which is what desktop apps are all about.

Wine on the other-hand, is a Linux port of (major parts of) Microsoft’s Win32 library – the core dependencies of the Windows development libraries, and more importantly, the win32 interface elements. With Wine, you can run many traditional C++ win32 executables on Linux, with certain limitations.

Mono’s biggest stumbling block is the GUI and .NET programs that use P/Invoke to call native non-managed win32 dlls – Mono is a pure .NET environment, and can’t handle them. But from the description above, that’s exactly what WINE excel at… So can’t we use WINE + Mono to make just about any .NET program run on Linux fresh out of the .NET compiler?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Back when the Mono project was first starting out, the Mono development team considered using WINE to implement the System.Windows.Forms namespace of the .NET Framework (which is practically 100% native C++ unmanaged win32 code in .NET wrappers). But they made the right choice in deciding to not take the easy way and go that route, leaving the integrity of the Mono project intact and focusing on true cross-platform user interface libraries instead (the GTK# is now the UI Library of choice for cross-platform .NET applications).

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Please Microsoft, Stop Holding .NET Back!

Posted on April 23, 2007 by NeoSmart Technologies

As dedicated developers, end-users, and champions of Microsoft’s .NET Framework, we’re making a final plea to Microsoft and the .NET Framework team to save .NET and make it a real multi-platform framework. Please!

Sun could (and did) do it with Java, so why can’t Microsoft just swallow the pill already and provide real support for the .NET Framework on all operating systems? Yes, that includes Linux and Mac too. It’s ironic, because the .NET Framework has so much potential as a platform with its unique multi-language structure, nifty features, excellent libraries, (relatively) well-performing output, and darn-good innovative technologies like LINQ coming-up and XAML already here. Yet Microsoft just doesn’t realize that if they truly want .NET to succeed, they’ll have to bite the bullet and stop pretending that only officially supporting Windows won’t make users leave Linux/Mac/BSD/Whatever and buy licenses for Windows instead.

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EasyBCD 1.51 Released: Dual-Boot Vista and Anything!

Posted on December 17, 2006 by NeoSmart Technologies

After two months of crazy bug-hunting and hundreds of rounds of scenario testing, EasyBCD 1.51 is finally out. If you’re in a really big hurry, go and get it – if not, read on. EasyBCD 1.51 is a very major change from 1.5. As a matter of fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that it would completely ruin our release schedule, this release would have been dubbed EasyBCD 2.0. It’s that big.

What makes EasyBCD 1.51 so special is the switch in purpose and technique. In the past, EasyBCD was only a bootloader modification tool that let end-users configure the Windows Vista bootloader, and EasyBCD 1.5 added support for “profiles” that could be used to boot into Linux, BSD, & OS X. Not only does EasyBCD 1.51 add support for several other operating systems, but also it goes a step further. A very big step further. Now, if there is anything that Vista’s BCD bootloader can’t boot into, EasyBCD 1.51 comes with its own additional bootloader that can boot into it. It’s called NeoGrub, and you’re going to love it.

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ReactOS Reviewed: The Next Windows?

Posted on July 13, 2006 by NeoSmart Technologies

The idea is simple: Linux isn’t always the best non-Windows operating system. Windows is excellent and unbeatable for quite a few people and tasks. But neither is perfect. Almost exactly 10 years ago, a team began to search for a fix. In 1996, Linux was unusable for anyone but the most technologically ‘gifted’ and Windows 95 wasn’t anywhere near as complex as Windows today.

Originally called FreeWin95, the project had a decent idea, but terribly organized, implemented, and coded. Two years later, the dos-clone kernel was dumped, and the real project began. It was called ReactOS, and this time it was for real.

ReactOS is a 100% Open Source (mostly GPL) rewrite of the Windows Kernel. At its heart, ReactOS is an initiative to create an open-source project that is fully compatible with the all Windows NT-based drivers, applications, and services.

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